Made in Italy – Designed by a New Yorker

Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale Centennial Edition

This Rosso Magma Metallic GranTurismo MC Stradale Centennial Edition began its journey in Modena, Italy; when it was fully matured the GranTurismo made its way to San Antonio, Texas. Ironically enough, the person responsible for the great body lines and curves goes to the designer, Jason Castriota, who grew up in none other than, the United States of America. He was born on the East Coast and then later interned with Pininfarina in Cambiano, Italy. With Pininfarina, Jason, was responsible for helping with the design on such cars as the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano, the Maserati GranTurismo and a few other concepts and supercar’s for Maserati, Ferrari and Rolls Royce.

It goes without saying, how beautiful the Maserati GranTurismo MC Stradale Centennial Edition looks, but the sounds that come from the exhaust, are a thing of beauty. The 4.7 Liter V8 pushes out 454 horsepower through a ZF 6-speed automatic transmission, which gallops the car all the way up to its top speed of 188 miles per hour. If you’re wondering how quickly you can get this Italian Stallion from 0 – 60 miles per hour, it only takes a mere 4.5 seconds. With all this performance, you can still get a conservative 21 miles per gallon on the highway.

So, now that you have the performance vehicle you’ve always wanted, how will you help protect and keep this beautiful beast looking brand new? The owner of this Maserati chose to wrap the front end and rocker panels with none other than XPEL ULTIMATE paint protection film. The full front end includes: full hood, full fenders, front bumper, headlights, and mirrors. The owner also recognized how vulnerable the rocker panels are susceptible to rock chip damage, so he elected to have them covered with ULTIMATE as well. This included removing the factory film, which unfortunately, doesn’t provide full coverage.

Installation Process

Inspection

When you drop your vehicle off at XPEL San Antonio, the first thing we do is a full exterior vehicle inspection (to check for any rock chips or damage)

The next step in our process is using a clay bar, which will remove any surface contaminants (bird droppings, wax, sap, bugs, etc). This process will make sure that the surface is smooth and ready for the paint protection film to be applied.

Final Wipe Down

Once the claying process is complete, we’ll wipe down your vehicle and inspect the paint before applying the paint protection film.

Paint Inspection

If there are any contaminants left behind we will repeat the clay bar process to make sure you get the best installation possible.

Applying Installation Gel

Now that the surface is clean, smooth and ready for Paint Protection Film, we spray XPEL Installation Gel on the surface where film is going to be installed. The Gel allows us to move the film around and get the XPEL Pre-Cut film kits aligned on the vehicle before we start using the squeegees to install the film.

Installing XPEL ULTIMATE Paint Protection Film

Once the gel has been applied to the vehicles paint, we will lay the XPEL ULTIMATE pre-cut paint protection film on your vehicle. Our XPEL Pre-cut kits are designed to fit precisely without the need to trim the film on the paint. If you are having XPEL installed, be sure to ask your installer if they are using XPEL pre-cut kits. Once the installers have the film aligned correctly, they will start squeegeeing the film in place, similar to the image below.

Final Inspection

Now that the film has been applied, our paint protection film installers will do a quality check to make sure there are no issues with the installation and continue to the next panel on the vehicle.

The installer is squeegeeing out the excess gel under the film, which locks the film in place. You can see where the installer has squeegeed the rectangle area on the right of the image.